ipb

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Bumping to remind you how to change the time settings

Bumping this, because we have had several instances lately where people have been making topics for fundraisers without seeking approval.

l6l: Please contact customer service (answers@blackphoenixalchemylab.com) for an answer to your inquiry. We are not the Lab and cannot answer your question, and the Lab has requested several times that they are not contacted here regarding CS issues.

For clarification:

• Having links to off-forum, non-eBay, non-BPAL swaps and sales (e.g., swapping clothing or other perfume) is ok.
  
• Having links to eBay sales is ok.
  
• Having links to off-forum, non-eBay BPAL swaps and sales is not ok.
  

Basically, we have been finding people linking to sales on LJ and other off-forum venues where they are breaking the price caps. Rather than say "only those links that aren't violating our price caps can be linked to", we're saying nobody off forum can be linked to.

Also: this goes for topics in the swaps forums. Topics linking to LJ and other off-forum swaps and sales will be made invisible and archived.

Bumping to remind that linking to off-forum LJ sales is not allowed. If you want to sell or swap on the forum, use the Swaps forums. If you want to sell or swap on LJ, use LJ. Linking to your LJ to get around forum caps is not allowed, and we've had several people doing this lately.

Maybe one of the mods could put a placeholder post in the old location or something, to direct people here?

The software doesn't do placeholders for merged topics. There have been a few times I've done it manually*, but it's a big pain in the ass.

*And when I say manually, I mean literally writing about a dozen SQL statements in the database by the time everything's said and done.

Starting today, we are handling excessive bumping of topics in the Swaps forums slightly differently. These changes are not very different from our current policy, except that we will be adding some consequences for those that continue to bump their swaps too often.

• First time: After the first time you have bumped your swaps topic more than once in a 24-hour period, a reminder will be issued.
  
• Second time: After the second time you have bumped your swaps topic more than once in a 24-hour period, a second reminder will be issued.
  
• Third time: After the third time you have bumped your swaps topic more than once in a 24-hour period, a warning will be issued.
  
• Fourth time: After the fourth time you have bumped your swaps topic more than once in a 24-hour period, a second warning will be issued. In addition, you will be banned from the swaps sections for a one month period of time.
  
• Fifth time: After the fifth time you have bumped your swaps topic more than once in a 24-hour period, a third warning will be issued. In addition, you will be banned from the swaps sections for a six-month period of time.
  
• Six time: After the sixth time you have bumped your swaps topic more than once in a 24-hour period, you will be permanently banned from swapping.
  

Hi guys -

I just wanted to let you know that our hosts decided to upgrade us sooner than we'd asked for two of the updates we had planned on doing Friday (upgrading our PHP and MySQL software), BUT that as a result of that upgrade, we have lost the ability to browse the feedback by letter.

Unfortunately, the part that is sucking is in the encrypted portion of the code base, so I can't fix it. (And to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that I could even if I wanted to - I haven't done anything with exception handling with PHP, and it's an exception handling problem.) The only way that it can be fixed is by upgrading the code base, which I haven't been able to start to do as we hadn't had the necessary server stuff. (What a catch-22! Can't upgrade it without PHP5, but PHP5 completely breaks the old software.)

So, that's been removed until I have time to go obtain the new code base and convert everything to be as pretty as we like it. You'll have to search by handle or use the links provided within the forum to find someone's feedback.

ETA: For a time scale, the last time we did this, it took me about 4 months to get everything the way we have it. It shouldn't take as long, because I'm much more familiar with IPB and with Censura than I had been then, but it will still take a pretty chunky amount of time to finish it.

Hi! I just wanted to remind y'all that exceeding the price caps when offering to swap or sell is not allowed. If someone does exceed the price caps, please let one of the swap moderators know by forwarding the PM. (Since we don't have a forward button, just hit reply and instead of the sender's name in "To", put one of their names - allidavie, clephan, cupid430, grrrlennyl, Scylla, twistygirl - or mine, and edit the "QUOTE" to be "QUOTE=sender" at the beginning of the post - leave the "/QUOTE" alone.) Thanks!

I've been futzing with settings tonight to try to see if I couldn't find a quick and dirty solution to a search engineering issue that popped up. For some reason, I thought it'd only take an hour, but it ended up taking 4. My bad.

but the last statement I recall Beth making was that she may begin using some synthetic components when the Lab introduces some aldehydic fragrances she is working on

The only oil so far that's had the aldehydes is the unreleased "Toxin" prototype, too.

Unfortunately, the tech guys were unable to get the binary logs to restore today's mishap. Sorry guys - what you've got is all we've got to bring back

PMs through our backup have been restored and I'm about to contact tech support about getting the ones from today from the binary logs.

I just wanted everyone to know that I just accidentally erased all of the PMs when I was trying to delete a bunch of spam from the member "spd". My apologies. I'll be able to restore the PMs through our last backup (Jul 24 04:04 EST), but anything sent past that time may not be recoverable. I'm going to talk with our tech support about seeing if they can recover them from our binary logs, so cross your fingers.

But, to be on the safe side, if you PM'd someone about something recently, you may want to re-PM them

Just a reminder that we still require administrative approval for fundraiser requests - even for charities. Topics created for fundraising efforts that are not approved by SV or I will be made invisible and archived.

This has recently popped up as an issue, and so I wanted to remind y'all that blocking a moderator from PMing you about moderating issues (duplicate topics, swapping outside the swaps area, etc) and can result in a warning and/or a suspension from the forum.

We have noticed that there are quite a few swaplift reports in the swap feedback system that aren't reported to our swap moderators. We have requested several times that if you leave swap feedback that indicates that you have been swaplifted that you also contact the swap moderators to let them know, so they can log the swaplift and, if necessary, inform me so I can ban the user from our swap forum. Our swap moderators are not in charge of the feedback system, just in administrating the forum, so they often are not aware that this is an issue.

Effective immediately, we will be issuing reminders (and, if necessary, warnings) to individuals who report swaplifts in feedback and NOT to the swap moderators.

Additionally, we have decided to notify users that they have had a swaplift report against them via the warning/reminder system. We are going through our old swaplift reports to add reminders, though it may be a slow process (I know that I've only done about a quarter of the individuals I'm supposed to cover). If you get a swaplift report, and it has been resolved or you don't know what they're talking about, please let one of the swap moderators know so we can verify and update the status of your report. Also, if you get a swaplift report and attempt to contact the person who has reported you and they do not respond, let the swap moderators know -- we will try to contact them off the forum for you.

Just a reminder that this is true even in your blogs.

Bumping because I just audited the feedback to compare the poor feedback/swaplift complaints against our official log, and noticed that several individuals have left feedback indicating that they'd been swaplifted by haven't contacted any of our swap moderators. This means that there are at least three individuals who should not have access to the swap forums, but currently do, and have been active in the last month.

The ONLY way to get swaplifters banned from the swaps forum is to make a report to the moderators by PMing them. When we get three swaplift reports, they are GONE until they have made good, and if they get an additional three reports, they are permanently gone. Leaving negative feedback does not get someone added to our log of swaplift reports.

When making a swaplift report to the swap moderators, you'll need to include the following information in your PM:

• who,
  
• what kind of transaction (swap/sale/purchase),
  
• what was swapped/sold/purchases (both halves, if it was a swap),
  
• when it was arranged,
  
• when your portion was completed,
  
• whether it was international/domestic,
  
• documentation (PMs, posts), if you've got it - but not strictly necessary
  

We are starting to go through our old swaplift reports and add them to everyone's user notes as reminders, so that if you have an outstanding swap, you will be aware that it's been reported, so this won't sneak up on you -- not everyone that reports swaplifters to us leaves feedback.

Actually, changed my mind on how to proceed -- I just moved all the affected PMs to a separate table so you can access your older ones and still use the PMs. Anything after now should be good to go.

If it was time-dependent, important: re-send.

If you have noticed this thread, the database problems we were experiencing has lead to a catastrophic error with the PMs and some PMs being read by people other than the ones who were supposed to be reading them.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that I know what happened, when it happened, and how to fix it.

The bad news is that there are approximately 650 PMs that need to be manually sorted. This takes time. I have a final in ~30 minutes. I am NOT going to finish this before the final and will NOT be able to start fixing this until approximately 9 PM CST.

I anticipate this should be fixed late tonight or early tomorrow, depending on how many PMs I need to renumber.

All orphan PMs (PMs whose title / to / from information is here but whose actual PM text is missing) will be deleted and I will notify the original sender in some way.

Just a quick note:

Once you click the "Close Topic" button for your swaps, you're done. You don't have to do anything else - your topic has been archived. Do NOT report your swap topics to be closed if you use the "Close Topic" button as it does archive your swap for you.

Also, I think the Lab site's search engine hasn't been updated in a while, so if you're looking for a recently released scent, it may not be there. But despite a few limitations, it's a very handy tool!

It was recently updated

Also, for those of you who use the "Swapped With" profile field to track your former swaps and sales, you will want to back that up as well as we're going to be eliminating it.